Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I beg the Ceann Comhairle's pardon. It was my mistake to turn to the Deputy when I made that remark. I apologise.

A huge response has been put in place. Earlier, we had the final meeting of the national emergency co-ordination group. It first met last Monday. Just because the group is being stood down does not mean that certain areas of our country are not still experiencing severe difficulties.

Crisis teams remain in place at local authority level in many parts of the country. The Defence Forces remain deployed and salting and gritting are taking place in many parts of the country. Local contractors and farmers have been engaged in the road-clearing efforts throughout the country.

In regard to roads, or any repairs that must come through local authority requests following Storm Emma, we will meet those requests through my Department, as we did in Storm Ophelia. We have asked local authorities to expedite a review and an assessment of the costs incurred, and we will put the funding for those repairs in place once those requests come in.

On the topic of reviews following crises like this, I note that a review process was implemented following Storm Ophelia, because we can learn from every one of these experiences. That review was concluding when another severe weather event took place in early January, requiring the National Emergency Co-Ordination Group, NECG, to convene again. It was once again about to conclude when we experienced Storm Emma. The people who are doing that review are the people who put the national response in place and work with our emergency teams. I have told them to incorporate Storm Emma into that review so that we can have a further discussion and debate on how we respond to weather events.

While I have the floor, it is worth pointing out that every red weather alert is different. When we get a red weather alert warning from Met Éireann, we do an impact assessment at the NECG and make decisions off the back of it. We cannot have a standing protocol, or a standing cascading effect stipulating certain actions when a red alert is called, because every red alert is different. As such, we have to make that impact assessment and that is what the NECG does.

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